way and Twenty-first Street,
and as other means of conveyance improved and multiplied, the point
for starting was moved north and further north until finally the
railroad was finished through to Albany and the stage coach was a
reminiscence of bygone times.

It is "159 m. from N. York" to Albany by the Post Road, as the old
mile stones figure it. When they were set up, a hundred years or so
ago, New York City was south of the present City Hall, and one can get
some idea of the city's growth when he knows that there still exists
on Manhattan Island a stone imbedded in a bordering wall along
Broadway, and in about its proper place, in the neighborhood of Two
Hundred and Fifteenth Street, which reads "12 miles from N. York."

[Sidenote: _KING'S BRIDGE._]

This trip starts with King's Bridge, built by Frederick Philipse in
1693. That bridge--which, like Mark Twain's jackknife, that had had
two new handles and six new blades, but was still the same old
jackknife--still connects Manhattan Island with the main land, being
supported on stone piers that are said to be the original ones used.
There is but one other bridge in the entire trip to Albany that can
rival its antique and aged appearance, and that crosses the Roeloff
Jansen Kill in Columbia County. Just East of the King's Bridge was the
"wading place" of the Indians, and later of the Dutch, where the
valiant Anthony Van Corlear met his fate, and, according to Irving,
gave the stream its present name.

To one who likes to speculate as to what might have been, had things
been different, King's Bridge affords large opportunity for thought.
It seems always to have been a favorite haunt of the human race, its
encircling hills and accessibility by water no doubt being responsible
for this popularity. Extensive beds of oyster shells testify to former
Indian occupancy, and the Dutch appear to have shown the same
preference for this quiet nook, though they finally pitched their
tents at the lower end of the island which furnished larger
opportunity for trade. If the city had been established here, would we
to-day be taking our pleasure jaunts into the country where now is the
Battery, and would our antiquarians still be discovering Indian
remains in that region?

Bolton's History of Westchester County says that the site of the
present village of King's Bridge was that originally selected by the
Dutch for their city of New Amsterdam, it being a spot protected from
the blast